yuastnav wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 12:38:The question is not why gay people should be able to marry.The question is why the hell it is forbidden for them to marry in the first place. That sounds like an arbitrary law, why not get rid of it?

Marriage in this country has religious influenced origins and has always been defined as a relationship between a man and a woman. I'd say that clear definition makes it more than just arbitrary. That's obviously changing and the issue at hand makes the question of why gay people should be able to marry the most important question. The answer to that question will ultimately determine whether or not it becomes legal.

If it's important to you, why not take the time to positively influence someone who's indifferent?

But if it has religious influence then it is arbitrary. For there are many different flavours of religion and they probably define it all in a different way. Apart from that there are also most likely cultures that either didn't have strong, religious influences and therefore didn't have religiously influences marriages or where marriage was separate from religion altogether.So again: giving it religious influence and therefore making it just a bond between males and females makes it really arbitrary because instead of basing it on equality and freedom and other democratic values it bases it on a particular, outdated and archaic interest.

Generally speaking having traditions is a bad idea because it implants a certain way of thinking and hampers the progression of society.As that I am very opposed to the idea of marriage but it doesn't look like it's going away. As far as I am aware married couple still get benefits when it comes to taxes (of course that may differ from country to country) and there is no reason why gay couples should be denied that freedom.